ABSTRACT
Following the defeat of the IRB uprising in 1867, radical nationalism which sought the complete separation of Ireland from Britain through force of arms went into decline for nearly 40 years. With many Fenian leaders imprisoned and exiled, constitutional nationalism came to prominence, striving for the twin goals of Irish home rule and land reform. Revolutionary nationalism re-emerged in the early twentieth century as a result of the Gaelic cultural revival that reinforced the sense of Ireland having a distinct identity separate from Britain, the sense that the constitutional movement had failed to deliver on home rule, the centenary commemoration in 1898 of the united Irish rebellion and the rejuvenation of the Fenian leadership (Lyons, 1968a: 42–3).
